~by GCNO publisher Victoria Riley
As I’ve done in the past two years, I’m sharing the list of books I read during the year. I read fiction to avoid relying on television for entertainment, and I read nonfiction either to get smarter or to expand my horizon.
I tallied 16 books in 2020 and 21 books in 2021. I was aiming for 30 books this year but managed 28. My life was, in general, busier this past year. Two books on this year’s list, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and The Hate U Give, are books that conservatives have objected to in school and public libraries. Two are teen readers I picked up while substitute teaching in middle school literacy classes: The Danger Box and Woods Runner.
I selected two books after reading about them in The End of Your Life Book Club — Crossing to Safety and The Price of Salt.
Fiction
The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles. Another book by the author of A Gentleman in Moscow, one of my favorite books. Once again, Towles creates a varied cast of characters without describing them but by putting them in action. The pace of Lincoln Highway is faster than Gentleman, making it a better introduction to Towles’ writing. The references to the Midwest and the Lincoln Highway were fun, although more of the story takes place off the highway. This was a very enjoyable read. (2021)
Duplicate Keys, Jane Smiley. Under the guise of a murder mystery, Smiley again demonstrates her skill at creating characters whose interactions show the complexity of human relationships. The relationship of the two main characters, Alice and Susan, is very well developed. As a mystery, though, it was disappointing. I had the killer picked out in the first 30 pages. (1984)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie. A lively yet poignant story of a teenager striking out from the world he knows on an Indian reservation to attend a small, all-white high school off the rez. Called Junior on the rez and Arnold by the whites, Junior tells of the poverty, alcoholism, and seemingly no future on the rez, with his deep love for his Spokane Indian people. The story goes from laughter to near tears over and over again. An excellent read for anyone who isn’t offended by teenage sexual references. (2007)
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes. A book on several lists of ‘books everyone should read.’ The story is told through progress reports written by Charlie Gordon, a man in his 30s who undergoes experimental brain surgery to increase his intelligence. His IQ increases from 70 to 180, but at his peak intelligence he realizes the experiment is flawed and he will return to his previous IQ or lower. With his increasing intelligence he explores relationships with his family and coworkers and how his mental impairment affected all of them. I agree – Everyone should read this book, but as an adult, not as a high school English class requirement. (1959)
The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas. Like The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, this book is on the list of those some parents would ban from school libraries. Told in first person, Starr witnessed the shooting of her friend Khalil by a police officer. The story tells of her challenge as she balances the world of the predominantly white suburban high school she travels 45 minutes one-way to attend, and the challenges of Garden Heights, the poor black neighborhood where she lives. It also explores the anger and seemingly helplessness of racism, particularly in policing. The story is very relevant to our times. (2017)
On Mystic Lake, Kristin Hannah. A totally cliché story of a woman who returns to her hometown after learning of her husband’s infidelity and ends up falling in love with her best friend from high school. Cranial junk food, but who doesn’t enjoy junk food now and then? (1999)
The Danger Box, Blue Balliett. For teen readers. A mystery as told by Zoomy, a legally blind 10-year-old boy with autistic tendencies. Zoomy’s father, who abandoned him when he was a baby, visits while on the run after stealing a pickup truck. In the back of the truck is a box that contains a strange, old notebook. Zoomy and his new friend Lorrol, who is in town only for the summer, figure out the notebook is a field book from Charles Darwin’s expedition to Tahiti in 1835. However, the person who put it in the pickup truck wants it back and will stop at nothing to get it. (2010)
Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner. One of the books discussed in The End of Your Life Book Club. As Terry Tempest Williams describes in his introduction, the book is a novel “about gifts: the gifts of our talents, the gifts of a marriage; the gifts of our friendships; the gifts of what endures and what falls away; the gift of a good life and the gift of a good death.” Stegner tells of the long friendship of Sally and Larry Morgan and Sid and Charity Lang, beginning with their first meeting as eager English professors at University of Wisconsin – Madison, and ending with Charity’s death from cancer 40 years later. The story provides many opportunities for the reader to consider his or her own life experiences. This is not beach reading, but a really great read for a serious reader. (1987)
Too Far to Go: The Maples Stories, John Updike. Seventeen short stories that together tell of the everyday comfortable familiarity in a marriage and also of its unraveling in a culture of mutual dalliances. I had read the book 35 years ago and really enjoyed it. This time, not so much. I found Richard and Joan Maples self-centered and childish. On this reading the best passage was in Updike’s foreword: “That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.” (1956)
Rules of Civility, Amor Towles. Towles’ debut novel tells a rather dizzying story of 20-something social climbers, those that were born into wealth, and those trying to reclaim status as wealthy in 1938 Manhattan. With vivid descriptions, snappy dialog, and fresh similes, the book is an entertaining read. (2011)
The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris. Set in Georgia in the early days of Reconstruction, Harris tells the story of brothers Prentiss and Landry, who are freed slaves, of George and Isabelle who have been married but existing in individual loneliness for decades, and of their son Caleb, who is in a homosexual relationship and witnesses Landry’s murder by his sadistic, domineering partner. Action scenes move the story along, while the complex characters provide the reader with things to ponder when the book is closed. Another great read for a serious reader. (2021)
Unsympathetic Victims, Laura Snider. The first book by Greene County assistant attorney Snider. The book is a hybrid of legal thriller and romance, introducing beautiful, driven, and single Ashley Montgomery, the only defense attorney in Brine, Iowa. Greene County readers will immediately identify Brine as Jefferson, even without noting the book cover, which features a slightly-edited picture of the Greene County courthouse. This is a Dorito read – the reader is drawn in and keeps reading even while knowing there’s not much substance to it. (2021)
Undetermined Death, Laura Snider. More Doritos! A good way to spend a hot summer evening. (2021)
Woods Runner, Gary Paulsen. For teen readers. Thirteen-year-old Samuel, a woodsman extraordinaire, sets out in search of his parents who were taken away from their home in the Pennsylvania wilderness in a British/Indian raid during the early months of the American Revolution. (2009)
House Rules, Jodi Picoult. Jacob Hunt, an 18-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome, is charged with murder, in large part because of his obsession with forensic analysis and his determination to follow family rules – that he and his brother clean up their messes and take care of each other. Picoult keeps the reader wondering for 300 pages if Jacob committed the crime. A very entertaining read. (2010)
The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith. One of the books discussed in The End of Your Life Book Club, this 1937 book became a lesbian cult classic. Therese, who is in her younger 20s, has her first lesbian encounter with Carol, to whom she is inexplicably drawn after a chance encounter. Set in the 1930s, the two take a road trip together to develop their relationship. Their trip is cut short when Carol’s husband, who has already filed for divorce, hires a detective and gets proof of Carol’s homosexuality. This book is good book club fodder, as it could be discussed on many levels. (1937)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe, in publishing this book, played a role in the Abolitionist movement in the 1850s. Woven into the very wordy writing style of the times are some surprisingly dramatic action scenes that hold up even today. Despite the Abolitionist stance, Stowe went along with the prevailing attitude of “negros” being an inferior race. This is a book everyone should read as a fully-formed rationally-thinking adult. (1854)
Non-fiction
Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism, Barry M. Prizant, PhD. The author explores autism in children and adults with many examples from his years in the profession. He suggests the behaviors of an autistic person are not misbehaviors but coping methods, and advocates for parents/teachers to ask what triggers those behaviors and reduce those. A hopeful and informative book for anyone who works with an array of students or who wants to broaden their knowledge of what makes some people ‘tick.’ (2015)
The End of Your Life Book Club, Will Schwalbe. Schwalbe tells the story of his mother, Mary Anne Schwalbe, founding director for the Women’s Refugee Commission, by chronicling the books they read together during the 20 months she was being treated for pancreatic cancer. Mary Anne’s passion for improving the lives of refugees across the globe is woven with discussions of the books and the windows into humanity each one opens, as well as the ways mother and son deal with her terminal illness. (2012)
Unstoppable: The Nine Lives of Roxanne Barton Conlin, William B. Friedricks. Roxanne Conlin has a force for equal rights for women and people of color, particularly in the workforce. She first came to the statewide stage in Iowa running against Republican Terry Branstad in his first bid for governor in 1982. She later ran against Sen Chuck Grassley in 2010. The biography is much more about Conlin’s career than her personal life, although it does refer to alcohol issues and her deep depression after her loss to Branstad. (2020)
Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger Syndrome, Rudy Simone. Asperger’s syndrome affects females differently than males. Simone, who has Asperger’s syndrome, shares her own experiences and the experiences and recollections of ‘Aspergirls’ and their parents. (2010)
Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life, Delia Ephron. Novelist and screenwriter Nora Ephron writes of the loss of her husband Jerry Kass to cancer, followed by the exhilaration of falling in love – at age 71 – with Peter Rutter, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, whose wife had died shortly after Jerry. Just five months after meeting Peter, Delia learns she has the same form of leukemia from which Nora died. Delia writes honestly of the torturous treatment available to her that had not been available to her sister, and of the unfailing love she and Peter have for each other. The story of the medical crisis balances the nearly unbelievable romance between two people in their 70s. (2022)
Bet the Farm: The Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America, Beth Hoffman. Hoffman, an ag journalist in California, moves with her husband to Iowa to operate his families’ farm in south central Iowa. Hoffman explores the reality of farming in the 21st century and dispels the agrarian myth of farmers as rugged individuals whose noble work feeding the world embodies independence and democracy. A very worthwhile read for those who know have only a non-farming knowledge of agriculture. (2021)
The NRA: The Unauthorized History, Frank Smyth. Smyth chronicles the history of the National Rifle Association from its origin in 1871 with the intention of providing marksmanship training to protect the U.S. in the event of a future war, through its growth to include hunter conservationists, and then its sharp turn in 1977 to become the largest civic organization in the country. Smyth traces the development of what he says is the NRA’s current ideology, that “no law-abiding gun owner should ever be penalized or even inconvenienced by the misuse of firearms by others; and almost any form of gun control would require gun registration, which would inevitably lead to gun confiscation, followed by tyranny if not genocide.” Not an unbiased read. (2020)
Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer. Krakauer closely examines the life and career of NFL player Pat Tillman, who left the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the US Army in 2002, the early years of the War Against Terrorism. Krakauer discusses at length the Army’s cover up of Tillman’s death by friendly fire. With many quotes from Tillman’s widow, family, friends and fellow Army Rangers, Krakauer tells the story with enough detail to be insightful but sometimes tedious. Not unbiased, as Krakauer is critical of the G.W. Bush administration and the top Army leadership. (2009)
The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, Michelle Obama. This book is a disappointment after Obama’s previous book, Becoming, as it’s more of a self-help guide to creating/finding fulfilment than a reflection of her unique experiences at the first Black First Lady. (2022)
